SF Supervisors Call for Outside Expert to Lead Drug Market Crackdown

San Francisco supervisors hope to use Mayor Daniel Lurie’s recent expansion of executive powers in a new push to combat drug dealing — one that would bring an outside expert’s approach despite a looming $840 million budget deficit.

On Thursday, Supervisors Bilal Mahmood and Matt Dorsey will propose a new framework for law enforcement to shut down outdoor drug markets. The proposal comes as Lurie has vowed to reduce drug dealing on city streets with increased police enforcement, including opening new command centers in the Tenderloin and South of Market, despite concern from some addiction experts.

The proposal draws from work by David Kennedy, a criminal justice professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. The supervisors are also calling on the mayor to hire Kennedy to help devise a plan to keep drug sales off the streets.

“Once a market closes down on one block, you have to make sure it stays closed,” said Mahmood, whose district includes the Tenderloin, a neighborhood long plagued by drug dealing on sidewalks and other public spaces. “We have to develop a new solution.”

The framework aims to improve interdepartmental communication started by former Mayor London Breed under the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, which includes the city’s police department, public health department, emergency management and other agencies. Kennedy’s approach also emphasizes deterrence, including deploying more community ambassadors for nighttime patrols and expanding job training to prevent people from entering or returning to the drug trade.

When Dorsey, who oversees the SoMa neighborhood, first attempted to introduce Kennedy’s plan in 2023 after he joined the board, it gained little traction. However, the political landscape has shifted since, with the board now holding a moderate majority aligned with Lurie’s public safety priorities.

”For the first time in recent years, all of the downtown supervisors are allies when it comes to public safety,” Dorsey said. “This is something we are closer to being able to implement.”

At least three supervisors have expressed support for the resolution, which will be introduced at the full board meeting on Tuesday.

If Lurie supports the idea, Mahmood and Dorsey may not need to get buy-in from all of their colleagues. Earlier this month, Lurie signed legislation allowing the city to more quickly hire and contract work for services related to the overdose crisis and homelessness by limiting certain requirements for board approval.

Mahmood said hiring Kennedy and swiftly implementing any future drug market response plans that come from the partnership “would not be possible” without the mayor’s newly expanded powers.

“It streamlines us to contract with professor David Kennedy and fund some of these public safety initiatives,” Mahmood said.

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said, like previous administrations, Lurie will not comment on proposed resolutions.

Dorsey acknowledged the potential friction in bringing in an outside expert to assess San Francisco’s challenges and help the city find a solution that various agencies can agree on.

“It can be a real challenge to have someone come in and tell us what to do when we don’t have enough police to do the basics,” Dorsey said. “In my mind, we should.”

Another potential hurdle? Kennedy could cost roughly $550,000 over two years, according to estimates Dorsey previously shared.

“I think it’s 100% justified,” said Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who supports the proposal. “This is having an impact on our local economy. Every day, this is impacting our general fund monumentally.”

The supervisors are hoping to lean on Kennedy’s roughly 30 years of working with local governments and law enforcement agencies to shut down outdoor drug markets in states such as North Carolina and Tennessee. His Drug Market Intervention strategy focuses on deterrence by arresting violent drug dealers and giving nonviolent dealers a choice: quit selling and agree to participate in social services or go to jail.

Kennedy developed the model in 2004 before fentanyl, an opioid 50 times stronger than heroin, hit U.S. cities. His approach has been adapted in multiple cities.

In San Francisco, 633 people died of accidental overdose in 2024, a drop from 2023 when the city had its highest year for overdose deaths — 810 — on record, according to data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Last month, 59 people died of accidental drug overdoses.

Supervisors supporting the proposal acknowledged potential health risks from disrupting drug dealing patterns, such as increased overdose risk. But Mahmood and Dorsey believe Kennedy’s model should complement public health approaches to address overdoses and addiction, from connecting users to treatment to distributing overdose-reversal medications like Narcan.

Mahmood said he also supports ideas like former Supervisor Dean Preston’s push to introduce a successful method used in Zurich, Switzerland, for combating drug dealing and overdoses. It calls for greater cooperation between health and police agencies and supports supervised consumption sites where people can use drugs away from the sidewalk and under medical supervision in case of an overdose.

“All of these things have to be considered simultaneously,” Mahmood said. “Holistically, we have to arrest dealers, and that has to be done in complement with helping people on the street struggling with addiction.”